Tadeusz Kosciuszko

Tadeusz Kosciuszko (4 February 1746-15 October 1817) was a Polish military engineer and military commander who served in the militaries of both the United States and Poland-Lithuania during the American Revolutionary War, War of the Second Partition, and the Kosciuszko Uprising of 1794. He was influenced by Enlightenment ideals while living in France in the early 1770s, and Kosciuszko

Early life
Tadeusz Kosciuszko was born on 4 February 1746 in Mereczowszczyzna, Poland-Lithuania (now Merechevschina, Belarus) to an aristocratic military family of Polish, Lithuanian, and Ruthenian descent. Kosciuszko enlisted in the Corps of Cadets in 1765, but his brother squandered his family's money, and he was unable to be commissioned as an officer in the army during the War of the Bar Confederation. In 1775, he was forced to flee to France after having an affair with the daughter of a magistrate, and Kosciuszko was influenced by Enlightenment ideals such as physiocracy and abolitionism.

American Revolutionary War
Kosciuszko came to the United States in June 1776 with other foreign officers to enlist in the Continental Army suring the American Revolutionary War, and the Continental Congress appointed him as a Colonel of the engineers of the Continental Army. Kosciuszko